WEBVTT - What Turkey’s Elections Can Teach Us about Defending Democracy 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:07.920 Also media. Hi everyone, welcome to the podcast. It's me 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:10.760 today and I'm joined by Meghan Burdett, who is the 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:13.160 director of research at the Kurdish Peace Institute. Hi. 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:15.240 Meghan, thanks so much for having me. 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:17.759 Yeah, thanks for joining us. So what we wanted to 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.079 talk about today was these local elections that have been 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:23.239 happening in Turkey in the last week or so. We're 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:25.920 recording in very early aprils that it happened I think 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.640 towards the end of March, right, yeah, March thirty. First, Yeah, 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.519 so can you explain to listeners first of all, Like 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:38.680 I mean, I've heard about these Turkish local elections almost 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:40.960 constantly for the past several months, because I hear about 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:44.159 them from Kurdish migrants leaving Turkey. Almost every time I'm 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.199 at the border. I meet people and they tell me. 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:48.960 Can you explain sort of the context of these elections, 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:50.840 the concerns going into them. 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:54.880 Yeah, of course. So first off, these are the first 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:59.200 elections in Turkey following the presidential and parliamentary vote last 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.800 year that was as a huge disappointment for the opposition 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:06.240 and also for a couple of separate reasons and a 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:08.919 couple of similar reasons for the pro Kurdish political movement 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:13.440 as well. The opposition underperformed last year. They were not 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:17.600 able to defeat Erdowan as the polling and the sentiment 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.560 in the country had suggested that they would, and the 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:25.479 pro Kurdish political movement also underperformed as well. They did 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:28.000 not win as many seats or as many votes as 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.200 they usually do, and a lot of that was attributed 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:34.360 to the very complex Alliance decisions they made, choosing not 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.000 to run their own presidential candidate and instead ask their 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.080 voters to vote for the CHP, which is the main 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:43.240 opposition party that has a history of being very nationalist 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.880 and violent and exclusionary towards Kurds. Though things have changed 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:50.320 in these past twenty years, voters didn't understand that. A 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:52.560 lot of voters weren't happy with that, and then there 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.920 were some local level issues with selections of candidates as well, 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:59.880 and then of course the climate of very severe political repression, 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:05.160 and had the Opposition one there was a lot of 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.760 hope that it would have started to change things on 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:12.000 the Kurdish issue in Turkey. You know, from what I'd 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:16.360 been hearing from people, there were prospects of political prisoners 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.000 being released of contacts between the state and of Dela 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:23.440 Ojealon being re established, which could have been the opening 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:26.240 of a new peace process. If you follow this, you 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:29.760 know the PKK declared a ceasefire prior to the elections. 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:33.760 They initially said that it was following the earthquake in 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:37.520 order to not allow the conflict to intervene with humanitarian efforts, 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:41.040 but they did very explicitly extend it through the elections, 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:45.760 and the discussions around that that I heard in Iraqi, Kurdistan, 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.800 in Northeast Syria and in Europe made it very clear 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.000 that that was an opening to hopefully be able to 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.720 leverage it into a larger piece process were there to 0:02:55.760 --> 0:03:01.040 be a political change. But that change didn't happends. The 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:05.639 situation did not improve. Ardwan continued his crackdown and his 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:10.639 military aggression against Kurds in Iraq and Syria, and for 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:15.400 democracy in Turkey, for the condition of the opposition, for 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.160 the condition of all the groups oppressed under Aerowan's regime, 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.240 whether that's women, whether that's workers, whether that's the earthquake 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:24.640 victims that have been left behind. Things didn't get better. 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:29.919 So these elections were an opportunity for people to register 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.680 their disapproval in a way that I think many might 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.360 have wished that they could have a year ago, and 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.680 that disapproval was registered for the first time. Air Dowan's party, 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:44.400 the Justice and Development Party or the AKP, was not 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:48.360 the first place party in Turkey. The main opposition CHP 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:52.800 actually overtook them the pro Kurdish People's Equality and Democracy 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.520 Party or the DEM Party, which used to be the HDP. 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.720 So if I call it the HDP, I'm sorry. Went 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:01.800 Actually there was a el were much more in line 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.680 with what they had done in the past. They performed, 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.480 you know, right on standard. They actually won more municipalities 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.800 than they did in twenty nineteen, and there was a 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:15.000 lot of enthusiasm for change among Kurds, among supporters of 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.920 the opposition, you know, among people who I think had 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:20.039 wanted to see things start to move in a more 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:24.400 democratic direction last year. So that was a very big 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:29.240 deal for that reason, and it also shows the fact 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:33.440 that Airedwan is not necessarily as invincible in twenty twenty 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:35.600 eight as people feared he would be. 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:39.520 Yeah, So talking of invincibility, I think that's a good 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.560 kind of key into our next topic, which is that 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:48.000 the elections weren't exactly like a smooth kind of I 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:51.360 guess concession by Idowan and by his party. Right, can 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.839 you explain to people who aren't familiar with this what happened? 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:58.160 Yeah, So, to start, before the elections, over seventy five 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.679 percent of voters who supported six sucessful pro Kurdish mayoral 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:06.000 candidates had their elected representation taken away from them. The 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:10.200 government removed and imprisoned elected mayors and replaced them with 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:16.280 regime loyalist trustees who essentially ruled these municipalities on direct 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:20.240 orders from Erdowan in Ankarab. So this was on an 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:24.560 unfair playing field for the Kurdish political movement to begin with, 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:27.520 very unfair playing field for the main opposition as well. 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.840 Atkreme Mamuluh's, the very popular mayor of Istanbul, who just 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.560 won reelection by a very large margin, as a criminal 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.120 case against him that could have him banned from politics. 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:41.320 So this was very difficult in the Kurdish regions. There 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:45.599 were many many irregularities on election day. One that a 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.520 lot of people were discussing were these so called mobile voters, 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.400 where the government actually sent members of the security forces, 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:56.479 predominantly from Western Turkey into Kurdish cities to vote in 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:01.120 large groups for the ruling AKP. You know, there's a 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.400 lot of videos taken by local media, local politicians and 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:08.640 activists challenging these people, asking them where they're from, and 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:11.279 then videos of them all crowding into the airports and 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.560 back on their buses flying back to Western Turkey the 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:16.360 next day, so you know, they're not even making a 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.320 pretense of being local voters that shifted the results in 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:23.360 some districts in Schernock, which is a very heavily militarized 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:27.600 province where the government bases a lot of its military campaigns, 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.239 you know, into the occupied regions of Iraq and Syria 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.880 from the pro Kurdish political movement alleges that these voters 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.960 shifted the outcome. So you had that kind of outright 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:40.320 attempts at theft in addition to the context of repression. 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.840 And then most brazenly, just one day after the election, 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:51.480 the local provincial election board denied a mandate of victory, 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.240 you know, essentially the documents certifying that a candidate has 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:58.200 won the elections and will be allowed to assume office 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.120 to the pro Kurdish candidate Bill A. Zaidon in the 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.719 province of Vaughan, which is a heavily Kurdish province, where 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:08.880 the dem Party won all fourteen district municipalities and the 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:13.960 metropolitan municipality as well. So the local election authority essentially said, no, 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.240 you can't run. There's been a last minute legal finding 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:20.880 that you're unfit to run for office, as there always is, right, 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:24.960 And then they tried to give the municipality to the 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.800 candidate from Erdowon's party, the AKP, who got less than 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:30.680 half of the number of votes. 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:35.440 Right, yeah, so kind of yeah, and validating the results, well, 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:37.080 you're going to break briefly for an advert here, and 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:51.240 then moved back. Right, we're back. So when they tried 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:55.240 to invalidate these results right into install representatives, I guess 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:57.720 you could call them that who didn't win the popular vote, 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.680 there was like a significant street response to that, right 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:03.880 can you talk us through that? And then the repression 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:05.120 of it and the results of it. 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:10.640 Absolutely so. There were mass demonstrations in Vaughan in other 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:14.600 Kurdish provinces, and these are people coming out who not 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:18.280 ten years ago saw the military raising their cities to 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.120 the ground, killing civilians in the streets. This is a 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:25.080 very costly endeavor. For Kurdish people in these provinces to 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:27.800 go protest. That's why you haven't seen it to such 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:30.560 a degree as was seen in the nineties, in the 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.560 early two thousands, since the collapse of the peace process 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.920 and that violent military campaign in the cities. But last 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:40.480 night they were out in full force, and very notably, 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:45.040 they weren't alone. There were protests in Istanbul and solidarity 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:48.559 as well, you know, carried out by Kurds living there, 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:54.080 but also by leftist parties, by feminists, by Kurdish religious organizations, 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:56.960 by all the segments of civil society that have sort 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:00.560 of oriented around the pro Kurdish political movement. And there 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:04.800 was also a pretty significant reaction from the main opposition CHP, 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:09.200 which is not known for radicalism. You had the CHP 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:12.839 party leader Osgara Ozel saying that it was illegitimate for 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:16.240 the government to deny a candidate a mandate, and then 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:20.120 you had Imamulu in Istanbul also criticizing the decision, saying 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.319 it was illegitimate and calling on the government to respect 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.160 the popular will. So at the same time you had 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:30.440 this outcry across the Turkish political spectrum. You had tens 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:34.720 of thousands of people out protesting, braving police violence. You know, 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:38.440 there were armed pro government vigilantes caught on video shooting 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:43.400 into crowds. There was very, very harrowing videos of beatings 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:47.480 and torture of civilians. Journalists were attacked and prevented from 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:51.800 covering the protests. This was a very difficult situation to watch, 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:54.199 and a lot of people that I was speaking to 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.040 were worrying about a return to the level of violence 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:00.960 that was seen in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. Were 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:04.400 things to escalate, but you know, sometimes there's good news 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:08.360 in Turkey and Kurdistan. Not always, but sometimes, you know, 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:13.880 in Turkish you'd say d nae Kazlanachaz will win by resisting, 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.920 and in Kurdish you'd say berghludan Jiana, resistance is life 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.280 and that sort of Those are very famous protest slogans 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:25.560 that proved really accurate last night, because today Turkey's Supreme 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:30.200 Electoral Council actually reversed the attempt to give the election 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:34.040 to the losing pro government candidate and gave the Dun 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:36.719 party candidate his mandate back. So they've said that he 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:40.439 will be allowed to assume office. And I think they 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:45.200 looked at this huge street protest. They looked at this 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.280 opposition coming from not only the pro Kurdish political movement 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:53.600 but many different political forces in Turkey, and the state 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.600 decided to back down. They decided not to pick this 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:00.320 fight now. And you know, that's not to say that 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:04.000 voter suppression in other provinces wasn't an issue. That's not 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:07.520 to say that there are still outcomes that are being contested. 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:10.320 You know, the government's doing a lot of very unfair 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:12.959 things right now to try to take districts from the 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:16.120 CHP and from the pro Kurdish political movement. But what 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:20.760 this does show is that when people insist on a 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:25.480 democratic outcome, and when they are willing to stand up 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:30.120 for it in large numbers and face the consequences the 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:34.120 difficulty of doing that, that even regimes like air dons, 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:38.080 these very you know, autocratic, far right governments have a 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:40.880 point at which they will back down. And I think 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:45.480 that that display of resistance and solidarity getting a government 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:47.680 like that to back down is something that can be 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:49.560 very hopeful for people around the world. 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:53.120 Right now. Yeah, definitely. I mean we've seen like just 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:55.199 to the stuff we've cold or obviously the United States, 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.760 but also in Mianma, like increasingly it's becoming harder and 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:02.640 harder for states to people's right to be represented or 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:05.440 to be heard, and like that's a good thing Germany 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:09.280 for democracy. Yeah, I wanted to ask about you spoke 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:12.800 a little bit about the Turkish military's incursions into northern 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:17.560 Assyria and into Iraqi Curtistan Curdistan Autonomous Region. Can you 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.200 explain that there's a lot of like I think Turkey 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:25.280 is pretty clearly like telegraphed plants for increased military activity 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.120 in that region. So can you explain, like what's what's 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:30.559 being proposed and what that means. 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:36.160 So, I think because they have gone into this election 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.560 and found themselves weakened, this is something that could make 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:43.320 Aerdon very dangerous. One thing that the government has always 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:47.239 done when it's found itself weak is try to polarize 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:53.240 society by attacking the Kurds both domestically and internationally in Iraqi, 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.600 Kurdistan and in North East Syria. Of course, you have 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:00.760 the AKP government's loss of its majority in the twenty 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:04.200 fifteen elections during the peace process becoming the reason for 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.640 the government's abandonment of the peace process itself. Then in 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:11.080 twenty nineteen after the local elections where the government lost 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.960 control of Istanbul and Ancara for the first time. That 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.360 was very quickly followed with the appointment of state trustees 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.640 to Kurdish municipalities and then the invasion of North and 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:25.199 East Syria following Ardwan's agreement with Donald Trump about that. 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:29.760 And so this does look like the kind of context 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:31.959 in which he has lashed out against Kurds in Iraq 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.360 and Syria before. And given these threats that you mentioned 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.360 that he has been making, the diplomatic traffic between Turkey 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.559 and Iraq, Turkey and Iran, Turkey and the US and Europe, 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:44.880 they do appear to be preparing for something now. I 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:47.400 was just on the ground in North and East Syria 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.720 and in Iraqi Kurdistan, and I heard from many people 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:56.199 that they're concerned the threats that the government has been 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.320 making a peur to suggest that they might try to 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:04.320 go for a geographically larger military operation this time. There's 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.959 a chance that instead of only conducting their typical spring 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:12.040 offensive into Iraqi Kurdistan, which usually gets them nowhere, they 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:16.439 might also attempt to invade northern Syria as well. Of course, 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.560 that's very internationally contingent. They would need a green light 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.560 from the Americans and from the Russians to be able 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:26.240 to violate those ceasefires and go in there. But the 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.480 threat's very real. It's something that people are very concerned 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:31.800 about on the ground, and I think that it's worth 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:34.880 paying attention to, and particularly for those of US and 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:38.200 countries that are allied with the Turkish government making noise about, 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:40.760 you know, opposing trying to get onto the agenda, so 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:44.479 that permission is not given here and they're not incentivized 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:44.880 to do this. 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:47.960 Yeah, I think that's a very good point, because, like 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:50.680 Kurdish issues are ones that don't come up very much 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:52.840 in the press in the United States for the most part, 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:56.840 and people and their representatives don't hear about them very much. 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:58.760 But this is one of those like maybe right to 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.040 your rep that doesn't a lot of shit isn't going 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.600 to get changed with an email to your elected officials, 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:07.640 but especially like certain officials who are on you know, 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.760 foreign relations to committees or something, as well as as 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:14.720 like other forms of political activism could help here, right, like, 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.720 especially in an election year like that, that's a way 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:19.200 to stop that. 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.720 Now, this is something that needs to be made into 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:24.840 an issue. And one thing I hear time and time again, 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:28.680 whether I'm speaking to people from the Autonomous Administration, the 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:32.600 YPG and the YPG or pro Kurdish politicians in Turkey 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:35.040 is they know, you know, the weapons that are being 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:37.920 used against them, the tear gas canisters, you know, the 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:41.160 drone parts, the bombs, the equipment, the military training that 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:45.800 these personnel get. It all comes from Europe, the United States, 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:48.840 NATO countries that are allied with Turkey. There's a lot 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:51.800 of leverage and you know, pushing to end that military 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:54.360 support is something that could be done right now, that 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:57.280 could be very important. And really, you know, this is 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:01.400 something where one feels almost on one makes these calls 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:03.480 like once constantly asking you know, you should do this 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.400 for these people because they're being oppressed and your government 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:08.520 has a say in it. But we really benefit from 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.160 this too, Right if you look at what the Kurdish 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:13.640 people and their allies in Turkey have done and standing 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.920 up for democracy in getting the government to reverse this 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.880 attempt to steal an election, you know, that's one small 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.680 example of the very powerful democratic tradition that they have. 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:26.320 That is something that we can learn from. You know, 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:28.160 whether you're in the US or in Europe, in many 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:30.640 different countries around the world right now, the threat of 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.040 authoritarianism and the sort of far right politics of which 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:39.120 Airedwan is an example. It's an international threat, and you know, 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.600 standing with the people who've been able to resist it 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:46.280 is something that you know can benefit us all around 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:46.960 the world as well. 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.640 Yeah, and like it presents a vision for a future 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.600 in which we all stand united against state violence around 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:58.040 the world, rather than being isolated and gradually destroyed by 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:02.280 various states and violent actives talking I guess of violent actors. 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:05.480 The one more thing I wanted to cover with we're 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:07.400 jumping around a little bit was that, like, I think 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:11.120 people will probably have seen at least maybe their social 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:13.440 media timelines are different than mine, but there was a 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:17.200 lot of violence against Kurdish people in Northern Europe recently, 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:20.040 right in Belgium, I think, I think maybe in Germany 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:23.240 as well. Explain a little bit of that. Like it's 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:25.480 we get into a little bit of like like Turkish 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:28.119 fascist politics as well, but can you explain what was 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:28.840 going on there? 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:34.520 So this all began when some far right Turkish nationalists 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.439 started threatening a Kurdish family after returning from Neil Rose 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:42.639 or Kurdish New Year celebrations and escalated into you know, 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:46.800 essentially these far right vigilantes prowling the streets looking for 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.520 Kurds and Kurdish businesses to attack. And this is not 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.879 something new at all. The Turkish government has invested a 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:57.919 great deal in allowing these structures to operate in Europe. 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:03.440 You have the GRABLE, which are a fascist paramilitary actually 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:07.560 the paramilitary wing of the party with which Airdwon is 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.199 currently allied and with which he has a majority in parliament, 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:13.520 the National Action Party or the MHP. You know, this 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:18.000 is a group that's been responsible for murders and assassinations 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:21.840 and all kinds of attacks on Kurds, other minorities, dissidents, 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:24.920 and has been responsible for violence in Europe as well. 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:30.560 You have the government encouraging religious fundamentalism through its network 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:34.200 of religious institutions in Europe and trying to make that 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:40.280 very extreme and very politically instrumentalized vision of religion popular 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.639 amongst the Turkish community. And then you have you know, 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:49.280 Turkish intelligence assets able to freely operate and conduct all 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:54.840 kinds of attacks on Kurdish dissidents. You know, within the 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.240 very center of Europe. Right, we all remember in twenty 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:00.639 thirteen the assassination of Sakina Johnson in front of the 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:04.480 Kurdish Community Center in Paris. That murder was never solved. 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:08.159 The perpetrator, who they caught, very conveniently died in prison 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.840 before he was set to go to trial. Turkish responsibility 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:16.159 has never been proven in court, I think because there 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.280 are a lot of people who don't want a full 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.200 investigation of a case like that to come out. And then, 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:23.720 just I believe yesterday or maybe the day before, it 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:28.720 came out that a Belgian court found alleged Turkish operatives 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:34.600 responsible for planning attacks on two very senior Kurdish diplomats 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.480 in Belgium who are members of the Kurdistan National Congress, 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:41.679 which is sort of like the de facto foreign ministry 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:46.480 of the Kurdish diaspora in Europe. You know, these individuals 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:50.040 had been spying on the Kurdistan National Congress building, They'd 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:53.680 been in contact with Turkish officials, They'd been planning assassinations 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:57.480 very senior politicians. This is a real problem. You know, 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.600 these groups and the state itself are able to freely 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:06.359 attack civilians, plot murders and do violence and really cause chaos, 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:09.200 and that's something that's very dangerous, not only for the 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.000 Kurdish community, but for really anybody living in their way. 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:14.600 Yeah. Yeah, and there are a lot of people who 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:17.600 would rightly want that to stop. I think, so, like, 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.280 what's the current situation is a number of people were 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.400 like beaten. Was somebody kidnapped? Did I see what was that? 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:26.640 I didn't see any further reporting on that than one photo. 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.440 It was very serious. I mean, there were people were attacked. 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:34.480 I'm not exactly certain of the extent of kidnappings or 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:38.800 other instances like that, but this was some very serious violence. 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:42.320 And we know what these groups are capable of. They 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:45.840 have killed people and they have essentially gotten away with it. 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:50.399 So it may have dived down for now, which is 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:53.520 certainly good. And obviously, you know, we saw a lot 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:56.640 of calls for restraint, you know, from the Kurdish community, 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.199 a lot of calls for these European governments essentially to 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.560 do their job and prevent these groups from you know, 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:08.480 importing their nationalist campaigns against a persecuted minority to a 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:10.639 place where you know, these chords have fled to be 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:13.440 free from that sort of thing. So it stopped for now, 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.400 but it's very much not over, you know. I when 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:18.440 you see the Kurdish community in Europe and spend time 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:20.440 with them and look at the security precautions that they 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:24.080 have to take just to hold conferences and cultural festivals, Yeah, 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:25.320 it's really quite disheartening. 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:28.520 Yeah. Yeah, especially like you say, in northern Europe, like 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:31.119 they're not in Turkey. They left Turkey to avoid that stuff. 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:32.960 Yeah. 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.600 We'll take a second outbreak here and then we'll be 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:50.560 back to finish up. So for the last part, do 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:52.320 you have anything you want to add that we haven't 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:53.040 got to yet. 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:57.359 I think that, you know, overall, looking at the situation 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:01.439 in Turkey following these elections, looking at the situation in Europe, 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:05.600 we're seeing that the Turkish government continues to be an 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:09.879 example of the danger of these kinds of far right nationalist, 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:14.719 religious fundamentalist regimes that are on the rise everywhere. These 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:18.520 are political trends that are growing around the world, and 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:24.359 Airdowan and his current Turkish government are a very clear 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:28.080 example of the danger that that causes not to just 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:32.000 the population of a country, but to neighboring countries, to 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:36.320 diaspora communities that have left that have gone elsewhere. That 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:40.080 maintain their culture and maintain their interest in political organizing. 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:42.760 So these are threats that people are going to be 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.200 looking at around the world, and I think it's very 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:47.919 important to be following the situation in Turkey for that reason. 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:51.120 But at the same time, looking at how the Kurdish 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:54.439 people and their allies in Turkey, you know, on the left, 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:57.680 in workers' movements, in feminist movements and all of these 0:22:57.720 --> 0:23:01.320 sort of groups that have also been victed by Erdowan's regime. 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:05.840 We're seeing that resistance is possible, that people can stand 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:09.920 up for democracy and they can win, and that look right, 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:13.160 nobody's giving up on their work. You know, the KMK 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:17.600 doesn't stop advocating for Kurdish interests in a diplomatic capacity 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:20.480 because their members face threats. You know, these people go 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:23.159 to work every single day, you know, in Roosjeva, in 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:27.520 North and Eastsyria, in Iraqi, Kurdistan, Kurdish groups, you know, 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:32.560 Kurdish political organizations, Kurdish politicians and activists, they continue building 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:34.879 up their project. You know, I said, I was just 0:23:34.920 --> 0:23:38.120 in northern Syria. It's extremely difficult right now. People don't 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:40.879 have electricity, people don't have water because Turkey bombed all 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:44.359 the infrastructure, but still they're celebrating Noil Rose. You know, 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:47.400 they're talking about their upcoming local elections that they want 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:49.560